Sony's hard-drive-based SD camcorders get more storage, longer lens

As price and physical size of storage--both hard drives and flash memory--steadily decline, it's not a big surprise that the capacities are the first things to be tweaked on a camcorder line. Case in point, Sony refreshed its 2008 Handycam SR-series models (the DCR-SR45, -SR65, and -SR85) by bumping their storage amounts up.

Samsung Behold t919 Brushed Expresso - T-Mobile

If you’re looking for a sleek touchscreen mobile phone serviced by T-Mobile, you’ll want to be sure to check out the Samsung Behold t919.

The Samsung Behold t919 can be used to surf the internet and send and receive Email and instant messages.

The Samsung Behold also features full multimedia playback, so you can watch video and share pictures on your phone. A 5 megapixel camera/video recorder allows you to capture your favorite moments. Bluetooth streaming music provides tunes and handsfree operation. The Behold’s has MicroSD expansion to 16 GB, should you need additional memory.

The Samsung Behold operates on GSM 850/900/1800/1900 networks and is compatible with T-Mobile’s UMTS/HSDPA 3G network.

For personalization, you can download ringtones and wallpapers to theSamsung Behold.

The phone can be used with My Faves service, which allows you to call five of your favorite people (on any wireless network) without using your plan minutes.

The Samsung Behold is available now.

Samsung Unvieils New Luxia HDTV Line

Samsung has just unveiled a new line of television that utilize LED-backlight technology, called Luxia. The new HDTV’s offer promise to bring a new line of high quality display, energy efficient technology and ultra thin design.

The Luxia line-up comes with a handful of new feautures including Samsung’s signature Touch of Color image display that helps produce better contrast ratios and a full range of colors with crystal clear detail. They will also come with a built in internet yahoo widget that will allow you to watch internet videos, check your mail, and view photos. Additionally the Luxia line will be one of the many new televisions coming out with a 240 Hz refresh rate, which will help make a clearer picture. Expect to see the new line-up of television to hit store shelves in the first half of 2009.

Nokia 7510 Loses Supernova Name, Heads to T-Mobile

Overshadowed by Palm’s new Pre handset, the Nokia formerly known as the 7510 Supernova made a rather lackluster appearance at CES yesterday. Exclusively headed to T-mobile, the quad-band flip phone definitely isn’t one of Nokia’s finest, but it’s a decent midrange handset.

The 7510 Supernova was originally launched as part of the Supernova line, in early July of last year. The phone included the always fun push-to-open button, 2 megapixel camera, WLAN, and some Xpress-on covers. Fast forward six months later. The new Nokia 7510 includes an always fun push-to-open button, 2 megapixel camera, WLAN, and some Xpress-on covers.

Okay, so it’s not exactly what you’d call a "new" phone, just a release in a different market. And the phone itself isn’t too bad at all: it has support for UMA, which lets you seamlessly transfer from GSM to wi-fi connections and back, a "hidden until lit" front display, expandable memory, and the aforementioned Xpress-on covers. Unfortunately, it’s still a Series 40 phone.

Officially, the Nokia 7510 will be available later this month, at T-mobile retail + online stores. But don’t count on finding any real information on T-mobile’s web site: the phone isn’t listed there, which is - how do I say this - complete garbage.

Nokia N79 Active Bundles Heart Monitor, Armband

When the economy gets tough, the tough start bundling. At least that’s the latest idea from Nokia, who recently introduced the Nokia N79 Active - a phone that comes bundled with a whole bunch of sportsy stuff.

Bundles are generally a very bad idea, at least for the consumer (see: Nintendo Wii bundles). Most of the time you end up with extra crappy junk that you wouldn’t have bought on your own but now you’re stuck with. The good news is the Nokia N79 Active isn’t a bad bundle. At 375 euros, it’s not ridiculously priced (compare to retail price of 350 euros for the stock N79), and it comes with some decent stuff:

Polar WearLink Bluetooth heart rate belt

"Sporty" Headphones

Armband

4GB memory card

You also get the latest version of Nokia’s Sports Tracker software.

For those of you who need a memory refresh, the N79 is the next iteration of the N78/N82, a candy bar loaded with a lot of good stuff: 5 megapixel camera, dual LED flash, A-GPS, 3.5 mm audio jack, stereo speakers, you name it.

Netflix ready HDTVs coming soon

In 2007, Netflix introduced instant streaming movies for the PC, then devices that were capable of displaying that content on a TV started appearing, like the Xbox 360, Roku player, and certain Blu-Ray players.

Now Netflix is partnering with LG to release TVs that are capable of playing movies from a Netflix account without an external device. All that is needed is a Netflix subscription and an ethernet connection.

The new models are being shown this week at CES 2009, and LG already has 2 honoree awards at the convention. They will be available in spring 2009.

Sort-of Awesome: LG’s GD910 Watch Phone

Watch phones are just one of those cool, futuristic ideas that usually end up being completely unpractical in the real world. So of course I drooled all over LG’s latest creation, the GD910.

LG has done away with the old-school "calculator watch" button style in favor of just one small (1.43 inch) touch-screen with three buttons on the side. That’s good and bad. On one hand, the entire watch is fairly svelte (13.99 mm thin), so it doesn’t feel like you’re strapping a brick to your wrist. But now you have to deal with a tiny touch-screen, which could be a serious problem.

The GD910’s full set of features is pretty limited (as is getting any hard specs on it), but it’s definitely got the necessities: voice dialing, speech recognition, text-to-speech, Bluetooth, camera, and music player. And 7.2mbps HSDPA, apparently.

Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition Goes The Way of the Dinosaur

Today we bid a fond farewell to the Nokia N810 WiMax Edition, unveiled nine months ago as a revolutionary, next-gen internet tablet. Maybe too revolutionary.

According to Reuters, Nokia has officially "ended production ended production of its only mobile device using the U.S.-centered WiMax technology, another blow for the struggling wireless technology." The N810 WiMAX Edition (was) a touch-screen tablet with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, based off of the original N810.

Not dead yet: Sony rolls out two DVD-based Handycams

I'm sure there are still people out there that want to record standard-definition video directly to DVD. Sony, however, has made its latest DVD Handycams sort of bridge products between the past and present.

The DCR-DVD850 (available in February for about $430) is a new "Hybrid Plus" model able to record video to 3-inch DVDs, Memory Stick flash media, or its 16GB of internal memory.

Deal: Refurbed Plantronics Bluetooth Headsets for $14.99 Shipped

So this Plantronics Discovery 630E Bluetooth headset used to be a cool $119.95. Now it’s refurbished and marked down to $14.99. Deal?

Even though it’s pretty cheap (even for a refurb), it’s got some decent features: 15 hours of talk time, a carrying case that can also charge the headset with an included AAA battery (also comes with an AC charger), and a weight of 9 grams. You also get a case and some extra ear tips. Not too shabby.